Time to roll up your sleeve and donate a pint of blood

The blood bank that serves dozens of hospitals across Nebraska reports its blood supplies are getting dangerously low.

Danielle West, spokeswoman for LifeServe, says December and January are typically the worst months of the year for donations as so many people are on vacation, traveling or the weather’s bad.

“We want to remind people how important it is to give blood because the need at hospitals is still the same no matter how many donors are coming out,” West says. “We’re definitely seeing our blood supply go lower and lower than we’d like it to be so we’re reminding people to come out and donate if they can.”

While donations are needed of all blood types, West says a few types in particular are more urgently sought.

“O-negative is the universal blood type so anyone can receive O-negative, and O-positive is the universal positive blood type,” West says. “Those are usually the most critical but really all of our blood types are lower right now than we’d like them to be.”

Donating a single pint of blood may help save the lives of as many as three hospital patients. Nebraskans shouldn’t be too concerned about the amount of time they’ll have to commit to donating a pint.

“You can be in and out in 45 minutes to an hour and that’s from start to finish,” West says. “Really, the donation process where you’re actually on the chair is five to ten minutes total. You start with registration, we do a short questionnaire, a mini-physical, you’re in the chair for five to ten minutes and then we have snacks and goodies at the end of every donation.”

LifeServe supplies blood and blood products to hospitals across Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota.

“We partner with around 120 hospitals which means we are their sole provider and they only get blood products from LifeServe,” West says. “If we don’t have what we need on our shelves to support them, we have to go find it elsewhere, which is not what we like to do or where we’d like to be.”